Expanding Happy Hollow’s Impact on Central Indiana Youth
Strategic Planning for Mapt Solution’s Inaugural Transformation Challenge Winner
Happy Hollow Children’s Camp is an overnight camp located on a 900-acre campus in Brown County, Indiana. Many of Happy Hallow’s campers live in what the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department considers the city’s highest crime neighborhoods. Since Happy Hollow’s founding in 1951, more than 40,000 youth have attended a weeklong camp, with 96 percent of campers qualifying for free or reduced lunch.
Happy Hollow’s Challenge
Like many, Happy Hollow faced post-pandemic challenges and recognized a need to step back and reimagine its operations and services to build sustainability and fortify its future success. These challenges and opportunities led Happy Hollow to the inaugural Mapt Solutions Transformation Challenge.
The Process
Alongside Happy Hollow’s leadership and its board, Mapt helped chart a plan for the camp’s future growth, which included exploring its vision, ensuring sustainable funding sources, leveraging its 900+ acre campus to help its growth and evolution, and revisiting its procedures to reflect the youth served.
As a result of the Transformation Challenge, Happy Hollow has a deeper understanding of its strengths and opportunities, a clear plan for the next five years and a detailed roadmap to execute it in the first year. Additionally, the effort built deeper relationships and collaboration between Happy Hollow’s board and staff.
Phase 1 – Discovery & Landscape Review
Mapt engaged Happy Hollow’s stakeholders — including staff, board members, current and past campers and parents — to gather insight and feedback from the entire camp community and tapped into the knowledge of camps and organizations with similar missions to identify best practices across the summer camp landscape.
Learn more about the value of external perspective — and hear from Happy Hollow — in the blog post below.
Phase 2 – Strategic Planning
After the discovery phase, Mapt incorporated its findings and the decisions from Happy Hollow’s leadership and board into a five-year strategic plan that will help Happy Hollow achieve the growth and impact it desires.
Hear what Happy Hollow Executive Director Sara Noyed and Board Member Bryan Swank had to say about the process.
Phase 3 – Implementation Support
Finally, Mapt put together a first-year implementation plan and delivered Happy Hollow a $25,000 check to support the organization in putting its strategic plan into action.
Learn more about Mapt’s implementation plans in the blog post below.